


archive of his own

by vvelna



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Characters Writing Fanfiction, M/M, not about himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 22:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16250672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvelna/pseuds/vvelna
Summary: Phil accidentally exposes his ao3 account.





	archive of his own

**Author's Note:**

> this is another bingo fic, written for the prompts "a/b/o society" and "exposure." 
> 
> disclaimer: there are multiple fics on ao3 that share a title with the made-up fic in this fic (god this is so confusing to write about); this fic was not based on them or meant to reference them in any way.

It happened because of an Instagram story. Phil’s laptop was clearly visible in the background, with ao3 open in a browser window. He was logged into his account, on the page of a fic he’d written. It was a careless mistake.

He checked his twitter mentions a few hours after updating his story, and saw that they had blown up, even more so than usual after he released any kind of content. When he saw the zoomed in screenshot, he didn’t understand what he was looking at. Then the realization washed over him like ice cold water. Everything around him disappeared and he sat frozen. If he didn’t move, maybe he could stop time and keep the damage from progressing.

He felt exposed—like he’d been stripped naked and turned inside out. Like people had walked into his brain and helped themselves to things that weren’t theirs to take. (Of course, he was the one who’d left the door open.) It was a feeling he’d experienced before, at varying intensities. The nature of his career meant his life was always under a microscope, but most of the time he got to choose what went on the slides. Still, things slipped through the cracks, and the pieces of him he unintentionally divulged were always magnified and spread beyond his control.

On that day, he’d gone back to read some of the comments on one of his fics to cheer himself up. He hadn’t written anything in quite a while, but he’d been feeling uninspired about making videos lately, and thought maybe wading back into other creative pursuits would spark something.

The fic was “Blood Bonds”—a 200k alpha/beta/omega _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ fic he’d written in 2013. It was his most read, commented, and kudos’d fic. His entire account had been revealed along with it. All the _Buffy_ , Marvel (including some MCU cast rpf), and _Game of Thrones_ fics, and everything from various other fandoms he’d dabbled in.

The title was clearly visible on screen, his username there below it, as well as in the top right corner—and that was what gave him away. If it hadn’t been obvious that he was signed into his own account, the story would be “AmazingPhil is a Depraved Weirdo Who Reads Totally Gross Fanfiction,” rather than “AmazingPhil is a Depraved Weirdo Who _Writes_ Totally Gross Fanfiction.”

Phil had been slowly chipping away at the innocent, family friendly persona he’d constructed over the years, but his main channel was still supposed to be a relatively accessible space for people of all ages. Consequently, for a lot people—especially parents whose kids were fans—the fact that he’d written a story that included numerous explicit gay sex scenes, and featured Angel impregnating Spike, was wildly inappropriate.

There was a small percentage of people—mainly those who read and wrote fic—including a few who had actually read “Blood Bonds”—celebrating the news. Other people seemed to find it harmless but hilarious. But the vast majority of reactions he saw were from people outside of fandom experience, and they were harsh, to say the least.

The fact that he wrote fic wasn’t a secret to everyone. Dan knew and his closest friends both online and offline knew. He wasn’t ashamed. He just wanted it to be read by the people he’d written it for. The people who liked the things he liked, the people who understood. Not outsiders who’d pull it apart and mock him and everyone who read his fics. Which was what they were doing, viciously and with great scorn.

About twenty minutes after realizing what had happened, he snapped out of his anxiety-fueled trance and deleted his ao3 account. He didn’t stop to think it over. When the deed was done, he slowly put his laptop down, walked to his room, and buried himself in bed with his phone. His eyes glazed over as he continued to read tweets and Instagram comments and tumblr posts. Then he saw that _We the Unicorns_ had somehow already published a piece on the whole debacle—like it was top priority breaking news—and he turned his phone off and shoved it under his pillow.

He wiggled his way further down beneath the duvet, till he was curled up in the center of the bed. It was hot and difficult to breathe. He didn’t hear Dan come into the room, only felt the mattress shift when he sat down on the bed.

“You didn’t have to delete it,” he said, in a deliberately neutral tone. It was the voice Dan forced himself to use whenever he was trying to tread lightly. He used it a lot when addressing his audience. Phil hated when Dan used it with him.

He wasn’t surprised that Dan had already found out about the whole situation and also knew that Phil had deleted his account.

“I did,” he mumbled, unsure if Dan could even hear him. “I couldn’t—I didn’t want to let people ruin it even more.”

It hurt. All of his writing hadn’t been lost. He had plenty of it backed up, and he was sure that most if not all his fics had been downloaded by fans in the time between them discovering his account and him finding out. Nothing posted on the internet ever really died. But he had lost all the comments. He’d lost the community. He’d lost that little space on the internet where he was free to express himself in a way he couldn’t anywhere else. He could start over—write and share work under a different name, lock everything so only signed in users could read—but it wouldn’t be the same. His heart ached and he curled up tighter, knees pressed to his chest to push back against the feeling.

When the stale, hot air trapped under the covers with Phil got to be too uncomfortable, he straightened out and let his head emerge. Dan was still sitting there, leaning back against the headboard and scrolling through his phone. He looked remarkably calm. Phil freed one of his hands and tapped him on the thigh.

“Do you think I’m overreacting?”

Dan put his phone down on his lap and pinched a bit of skin on his neck, working it between his fingers while considering Phil’s question.

“Maybe?” he said at last, and Phil bristled. “But I would too. Probably way worse, honestly. I like to dig my graves really deep.”

Phil pushed further out so he could sit up next to Dan. He ran his hands over his face and groaned.

“Why’d it have to be _that_ fic?” He buried his head in Dan’s shoulder.

“I thought you were proud of that one.”

“I am. I mean, the pacing’s terrible and it’s about 50k longer than it needed to be, and I handled the Willow/Buffy side pairing really poorly, and it was my first a/b/o fic so I didn’t do the world building very well, but—”

“Phil.”

“But if it had been the fluffy gen fic about Thor and Loki as kids getting ice cream, things might not be so bad.”

“They’d still have found everything on your account.”

Phil was getting annoyed by how unbothered Dan seemed. Why wasn’t he embarrassed or upset on Phil’s behalf? Had he learned to hide his emotions so well that Phil couldn’t detect them? That was supposed to be Phil’s thing.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I just want to pretend it never happened.”

“Okay.”

They sat in silence, Dan on his phone again, Phil deliberately avoiding glancing at the screen. After what felt like an awkward eternity of tensely ignoring one another, Dan spoke again.

“This will blow over. In a few weeks the only people who will really care will be some of our fans. People will start to doubt the veracity of the information. You’ll have people fighting over whether the account was even yours or not, or if everyone just jumped to conclusions. The screenshots will get called fake, even if video evidence is floating around on the internet.”

He took a deep breath. Phil wondered how long he’d been mentally drafting this speech.

“Do you know how many videos of me are out there, archived forever, where I’m saying shit I wish I’d never said? How many things I wish I’d never typed? Stuff I’m ashamed of?”

“Are you saying I need to get over it because you’ve got it worse?”

“No! I’m just saying, all of that shit exists, but nobody talks about it outside of our…fandom or whatever.”

“I guess…”

“And I’m not saying it’s the same situation because this isn’t something you need to be ashamed about, like, so what if you write kinky werewolf fics—”

“They weren’t actually werewolves; they were still vampires.”

“—people can just fuck off. Some uptight mums will probably try to contact our management and some YouTube hacks will mention it in videos, but that’s their problem.”

The passion had returned to Dan’s voice and it made Phil smile. He let Dan ramble on, all riled up and defensive on his behalf despite the fact that there was no one else in the room with them.

Phil closed his eyes and thought about who he wanted to be and how he wanted to be perceived. He hated tension and controversy, but beyond that, did he care if people knew he wrote fanfiction? It wasn’t some big secret. He’d just never talked about it openly. He untangled his feelings and found that the spectacle surrounding the exposure bothered him much more than what had been exposed. When all the noise died down, he would decide what to do next. He could be open about it, joke about it, or ignore it. He could keep writing, make a new space for himself. The internet was an infinite universe. There was plenty of room to begin again.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> [ reblog/like on tumblr ](https://velvetnautilus.tumblr.com/private/178903656975/tumblr_pgcx8yTIgO1wm9q5f)


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